Before Finn and I had left the nightclub, Roslyn had given me a list of rules Mab Monroe had sent her for the party guys and girls. Basically, Roslyn’s hookers were to make themselves available to anyone at anytime during the course of the evening and do anything—anything—

Mab’s guests wanted. Those guys and girls who went home with one of Mab’s guests for the night would be generously compensated after the fact. All outstanding bills, hospital and otherwise, would be paid in full by Mab.

The man with the clipboard jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Go on in.”

One of the giants pinched my ass as I walked past.

Although I wanted nothing more than to palm one of my silverstone knives and slit his throat for putting his hand on me, I deepened my smile.

“Now, now.” I waggled my finger at him. “I’m here for the guests, sugar. Not the hired help.”

His face flushed at my insult. The giant stepped forward, but the other one put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“She’s right,” the second man rumbled. “Mab will be pissed if you touch her. Remember what she did to Stevenson last time? Do you want that to be you?”

The giant paled. Evidently, whatever Mab Monroe had done to Stevenson had made an impression on the rest of her guards. The giant shot me a sour look, but he stepped back. I winked at him and headed inside the mansion.

The insane shriek of the stones washed over me again, so loud the spider rune scars on my hands itched from the sound of it. But I gritted my teeth and pushed the noise away, buried it so deep that it was nothing more than a murmur in my head. I needed to concentrate on my mission, not wonder what Mab Monroe had done in her own house to make it sound like that.

A hallway that was at least a hundred feet wide cut through the center of the massive mansion. Despite the relatively early hour, the party was in full swing. The trill of laughter and the murmur of conversation resonated through the house, low and mellow, like hidden cicadas cooing in the tall grass in the summertime. It helped drown out the stones’ insane shrieking.

During my years as an assassin, I’d gotten close to a lot of wealthy, powerful, influential folks. As a general rule, the richer a person, the stingier he was with his money.

Finnegan Lane agreed with my observation. He often regaled me with tales about his billionaire vampire clients who bought cases of off-brand toothpaste at the nearest Sell-Everything so they could save a measly five cents a tube.

But not Mab Monroe.